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The Issue of the November Election. 



AN ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN: 

BY WILLIAM T. COGGESHALL 

OHIO STATE LIBR^RIIN. 




Delivered before the Wide-Awakes of Tiffin, Ohio, Oct. 18, 1860. 



A LARGE number of young men, in all of our ITorthern 
States will, on the 6th day of November, 1860, for the first 
time cast their ballots for President and Vice-President of 
the United States, thus exercising the highest responsibil- 
ity of a citizen enjoying the choicest privilege of a freeman, 
and discharging the most important duty of a voter. 

They are the men whom I would this evening address. 

To vote is a duty which no good citizen will willingly 
fail to discharge, whether there may be a majority of five or 
of fifty thousand for, or against his ballot; and every good 
citizen will understand thoroughly the effect of the vote 
which he casts. 

I stand here to endeavor to show the men whose politi- 
cal careers lie in the future, what is the pivotal issue of this 
campaign, and to invite them to cast the ballots they con- 
trol, for the principles best calculated to restore to our 
Federal Government the justness and faithfulness which 
characterized it in the early days of the Republic, and best 
calculated to secure the highest good to the greatest num- 
ber of the American people. 



I need not attempt to discuss collateral questions. My 
puq)0sc does not require me to unfold the history of the 
origin and extension of slavery in America. I am not 
called upon to discuss questions pertaining to revenues, nor 
to present statistics for internal improvements. 

Relying upon a dispassionate and trustworthy statement 
of facts and doctrines which current history substantiates, 
I speak from the present for the future. I hope, not from 
mere party hias — I know, not from partisan prejudice. I 
rely on principles and their practical application. 

Adherence to justly grounded and well defined princi- 
ples, is the vital safeguard of permanent prosperity, alike, 
for the individual, for the community, and for the state ; 
and such adherence is none the less essential for a political 
than it is for any other organization. 

The lessons of history are clear on this proposition. 
Those lessons are found not always in events significant 
when they transpired, but often in what were regarded as 
minor affairs. 

Antiquarians have traced, in fragments of the most fra- 
gile of the productions of man's handicraft, long buried in 
shifting sands, not only important facts illustrating the do- 
mestic characteristics of non-existing nations, but facts 
which threw light upon the causes of their decline and 
fall. 

Doctrines and practices adopted and exercised by work- 
ing politicians, for temporary gain, in secret places, unheed- 
ed as soon as they are employed, are competent to teach the 
philosophic inquirer w^hy the administration of a repub- 
lican government is distinguished for partisan favoritism 
and for extravagant peculation ; why the prominent features 
of State and Il^ational jSTominating Conventions are pro- 
fanity and pugilism, disorder and deception, provoking 
honest delegates, in bitterness of heart, to exclaim, " What 
a piece of work is a demagogue — how villainous in con- 
ception — how deformed in all his propensities — how base 



to those who know he is unfit for office — how servile to 
those whom he can cajole ! " 

Political parties succeeding the national administra- 
tion which begins on the 4th of March next, may be what 
the young men of 1860 choose to make them. Demanding 
fealty to principles, and watchful vigilance against abuse of 
what is good principle, for narrow purposes and selfish ends, 
I appeal to every young man who respects the natural 
rights of his neighbor, and is not ashamed of the whole- 
some social law which makes honest occupation a neces- 
sity of trustworthy standing in the community, for cor- 
dial co-operation with the Republican party. 

What are its principles ? 
— That the Union of the States shall be inviolate. 
— That the right of each State to order and control its do- 
mestic institutions is essential to the permanency of our 
political fabric. 

— That involuntary servitude is a cruel wrong to the ser- 
vant, and is demoralizing to the master ; that it is incom- 
patible with industrial interests; opposed to the dissemi- 
nation of intelligence, and promotive of vice and crime, 
therefore, that it ought to be directly subservient to the 
restrictions of the Federal Constitution. 
— That the encouragement of free labor; the protection 
of home industr}^; shall be required of the Federal Gov- 
ernment whenever and wherever that government can 
legitimately exercise power for such purpose. 

These I take to be the principles upon which all Repub- 
licans are agreed, and which involve all the issues of the 
pending election. Justly discriminating tarifis, appropriate 
river and harbor improvements, homestead laws, Pacific 
railroads, economy of administration, depend upon and 
will grow out of their general adoption. 

Opposed to these principles are all parties and all citi- 
zens who do not act for them. 

]^o well informed man who is not the servant of party 



organization, or the slave of partizan prejudice, can fail to 
recognize in the contest of opinions now waging, antago- 
nisms which are as old as pride and poverty — as old as in- 
dolence and industry — involving popular endorsment or 
repudiation of the counsels and examples of the Fathers 
of the Eepublic ; counsels and examples which would com- 
mit the National Government to the protection of educa- 
ted free labor — to the support of profitable manufactures — 
to the interests of skilled agriculture — opening rivers and 
lakes for prosperous navigation — filling growing towns and 
opulent cities with varied sounds of industry — making all 
men workers and every Avorker a citizen ; counsels 
and examples squarely opposed to doctrines, by violent 
presumption now called " Democratic," wliich promise 
that the National Government shall promote the exten- 
sion of a system which enslaves the husbandman and 
makes the mechanic a chattel — degrading industry — dis- 
paraging invention ; a 83'stem which, in fear of itself, de- 
clares that truth shall not be free to combat error, and, to 
enforce this despotic law, forbids free discussion, violates 
the public mails, burns independent newspapers, and im- 
prisons schoolmasters. 

I do not misrepresent. 

I challenge investigation, in a true spirit, of the recorded 
sentiments of the venerated men who knew what public 
opinion was in the American colonies ; who directed the 
bold deeds which abolished English power in those colo- 
nies ; who dictated the articles of confederation ; who made 
the Federal Constitution, and who inaugurated the govern- 
ment under it. 

I confidently refer every honest enquirer to the Cincin- 
nati platform of the Democratic party, and its addenda 
adopted in either branch of that party, as it divided at 
Baltimore in June last, and demand whether the legitimate 
result of the triumph of that platform in I860, will not be, 
as the result of its triumph in 1856 has been, the prostitu- 



tioii of the influence, authority and money of the Federal 
Government to open disregard and culpable neglect of 
intelligent industry, for the secret encouragement of those 
who strive to extend and perpetuate African bondage? 

The essential power of the Republican party is in the fact 
that, in all its brief history, it has been true to the interests 
which demanded its organization. "What were those inter- 
ests ? Free Labor — Free Soil — and Free Speech, and the 
vital privileges in which they are preserved. 

Until 1848 the great parties of our nation, the Whig 
and Democratic, were without strife respecting the direct 
questions now agitating the American people ; but, far-see- 
ing Southern statesmen, by persistent, watchful opposition 
to the protective tariff policy of the Whigs — to the distri- 
bution of public lands to actual settlers — to river and har- 
bor improvements (opposition embodied in Democratic 
platforms, and accepted by iSTorthern politicians for peace 
in the party and for place in the government), prepared 
the way for the Compromises of 1850, for the Kansas and 
Nebraska Act of 1854, for the Dred Scott decision, and 
for the threats of disunion openly expressed in 1856, and 
repeated now defiantly. 

Valiant and chivalric threats ! Equal and exact justice 
will prevent their execution. The child which has learned 
that bugaboo in the closet is a myth for the preservation 
of sweetmeats, laughs the monster to scorn. It certainly 
Avill be hard for Southern politicians to surrender the pleas- 
ant places, at home and abroad, which they have almost 
monopolized, but even on the principle that turn about is 
fair play, it is not less right than hard. 

Attempting to harmonize elements in irrepressible con- 
flict, the Whig party died hopelessly. The Democratic 
party with dexterous management in promises on the one 
side, and with profitable encouragement in the distribution 
of offices on the other, which made it serviceable to South- 
ern statesmen, kept its identity until the Convention at 



Charleston exposed the long resisted fact, that without un- 
qualified endorsement of Southern " Rights," involving the 
acknowledgment of domestic slavery, not only as a con- 
stitutioual privilege, but right and expedient in itself, that 
party could no longer hold the votes for which it had sac- 
rificed power in the North. It was openly avowed, indeed 
tempestuously declaimed, both in the Convention at 
Charleston and in its successor at Baltimore, that without 
adherance to Southern Rights, as Southern men understood 
Southern Rights, the Democratic candidates could not de- 
pend upon a single Southern State ; and that two tickets 
came out of the confusion at Baltimore, is the best illus- 
tration yet exhibited in the history of political parties, 
that though politicians may manage, and candidates may 
promise, the people elect — the people who by sad experience 
know that candidates upon " National" Democratic plat- 
forms, by juggling with deceitful phrases, maybe expected 
to give ingenious illustrations of a fable the Arabs have 
respecting the ostrich, which they call the camel-bird. 

And they said to the camel-bird, 'Carry,' and it answered, 
' I cannot, I am a bird.' 

And they said to the camel-bird, ' Fly,' and it answered, 
'I cannot, I am a camel.' 

The seceders at Charleston represented distinctly the 
claims which have made Southern States Democratic 
States — which have made Southern Representatives in 
Congress, and Senators from Southern States, Democratic 
Senators and Representatives. Their declarations of pur- 
pose were in exact harmony with declarations of purpose 
in Congress; with demands persistently urged in the halls 
of national legislation — demands contemplating the nation- 
alization of human bondage — of African Slavery. 

Congress being the direct exponent of the nation's 
legislative will, endorsment of or adoption by Congress of 
any measure or policy commits the nation. Southern men 
with shrewd precognition of the legitimate eftects of uu- 



trammeled industry, have striven for Congressional en- 
dorsement of their property right in human labor under 
State statutes, because without that endorsement, Slavery 
is necessarily local, sectional, subject to disturbing causes; 
with that endorsement Freedom is local — Freedom is sec- 
tional. That is why the Missouri Compromise was re- 
pealed — why squatter sovereignity has had significance — 
why outrage and fraud were perpetrated in Kansas — why 
control of other Territories is struggled for with denun- 
ciations, with sophistries and with threats — why Cuba is 
coveted. 

If the balance of political power is to be maintained for 
Slavery, representation for Congress, and for the Electoral 
College on that which is claimed to be property (making 
five slaves who have no votes as good as three citizens of 
a free State), must be extended beyond the fifteen States in 
which it now crushes out social and political independence. 

That is why the Dred Scott decision was clung to at 
Charleston, and why it was not disregarded at Baltimore. 

Slavery once established in a Territory, and the State 
which grows out of it is doomed, because political power 
will be vested only in slaveholders. Free discussion will 
be put down by mobs. Interest in the " domestic concerns 
of the State," by actual ownership in slaves, will be the 
test of fitness for every place of infiuence or emolument. 

What then is the pivotal issue of the ]!>rovember election, 
the issue on which all the interests at stake in it turn? 

I state it deliberately, as it appears to me, not from par- 
tisan prejudice, but from convictions of the truth of his- 
tory, and from my understanding of platforms. 

Whether the patronage of the Federal Government 

shall be employed for the enlargement of the political pow- 
er of a system of servitude, necessarily antagonistic to the 
well-being of all who depend upon honest industry for 
their own support, and for the support and education of 
their families; or, whether the Federal Government shall 



8 

permit the natural development of principles essential to the 
preservation of those privileges and advantages which 
guarantee equal and exact justice to individuals, and en- 
hance the true greatness of the Commonwealth — privileges, 
indeed, in the full freedom of which common weal is alone 
possible. 

Standing "in the heart of an anti-slaverj audience," at 
Indianapolis, Indiana, Herschel V. Johnson, one of the 
candidates for the Vice-Presidency, appealing personally 
to the American people for their suffrages at the !N^ovem- 
ber election, said : 

" I would let my tongue be palsied before I would surrender one jot or tittle of 
the rights of the South. We must look to it ; you must begin with your con- 
stables, and go up to your chief magistracy, and plant your foot on every man's 
neck who dares to say he will interfere with slavery anywhere." 

That these sentiments, these generous views of Southern 
rights and Northern duties, represent a majority of the 
votes that will be cast against the Republican platform 
and its candidates, the speeches of Southern Congressmen, 
the messages of Southern Governors, the resolutions of 
Southern Conventions, the acts of Southern Legislatures, 
the violences of Southern mobs, the melancholy history of 
the shattered and dissevered— once unterrified — Deruocratic 
party, sufficiently attest; and, thereby, it is made so plain, 
the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not mistake it, that 
the rugged question to be settled ultimately, between Re- 
publican principles, and the doctrines which the Slave- 
power forces upon the Democratic party, is not whether 
negroes have no rights which white men are bound to re- 
spect, but whether those whose interests are in Freedom 
have any rights which those whose interests are in Slavery 
are bound to respect; indeed, whether genuine democracy 
has rights which privileged aristocracy cannot with impu- 
nity and at caprice tread upon. 

The day of concessions and compromises for temporary 
peace is past, North as well as South. Compromises have 



been like the gentle breath wliicli funs a spark into a de- 
vouring flame. Either now, by one vigorous blast, the people 
blow out that flame, or they permit it to be fanned into a 
conflagration which will consume all the national guaran- 
tees by which free labor is protected. 

The triumphs of Despotism come through diplomacy. 
The conquests of Freedom from the expression of the popu- 
lar will. 

It is a great fact illustrating genuine popular sover- 
eignity, in a comprehensive and noble sense, that the bal- 
lots of November are to be regarded as expressing the 
people's exposition of the Federal Constitution. Every 
voter should recos^nize in all itsbearino;s the weio'ht of this 
fact. 

Does any man doubt that it is a fact ? 

It will not be disputed that an honest Administration 
will be true to the political doctrines for which the people 
expressed their preference when they elected its Executive. 

One of the platforms before the people now is like the 
character the Chinese worship for the Supreme Being, 
without body or soul ; one of the others bears just that 
resemblance to its confederate which the donkey, in the 
fable, wearing a lion's skin, did to other donkeys. 

Let ns take ofl" that lion's skin and see what is under 
it. 

John C. Breckinridge, in his letter accepting the nomi- 
nation and platform made for him at Baltimore, said : 

"Nothing less than sovereignty can destroy or impair the rights of persons 
or property. The territorial governments are subordinate and temporary, and 
not sovereign ; hence, they cannot destroy or impair the rights of persons or 
property. While they continue to be Territories, they are under the control of 
Congress; but the Constitution nowhere confers on any branch of the Federal 
Government the power to discriminate against the rights of the States, or the 
property of their citizens in the Territories. It follows, that the citizens of all 
the States may enter the Territories of the Union, with their property of what- 
ever kind, and enjoy it, during the territorial condition, without let or hindrance 
either by Congress or by the subordinate Territorial Governments. * * The 
friends of constitutional equality assert the plain duty of the Federal Govern- 



10 

incnt. in all its departments, to secure, when necessary, to the citizens of all 
States the enjoyment of their property in the common Territories, as every- 
where else within its jurisdiction." 

Mr. Breckinridge's position is clear. Xo one need be 
deceived by it. No one will deny that he gives a fair ex- 
position of the Breckinridge platform. 

Stephen A, Douglas will be accepted as a fair exponent 
of the platform on which he was nominated. 

At the city of ^ew Orleans, Dec. 6th, 1858, he said : 

'' Slaves are recognized as property, and placed on an equal footing with all 
other property. Hence, the owner of slaves— iho same as the owner of any other 
species of property — has a right to remove to a Territory, and carry his property icith 
him,:' 

In his letter of acceptance, dated "Washington, June 
29, 1860, Mr. Douglas said : 

"The judicial authority, as provided in the Constitution, must lie sustained, 
and its decisions implicitly obeyed and faithfully executed." 

The Supreme Court had given a decision, two points of 
which were : 

" Every citizen has a right to take with him into the Territory any article of 
property which the Constitution of the United States recognizes as property. 

" The Constitution of the United States recognizes slaves as property, and pledges 
the Federal Government to protect ity 

In his pamphlet reply to the review, by Attorney Gen- 
eral Black, of the popular sovereignty article in Harper's 
31agazine, Mr. Douglas said : 

" In that article, I demonstrated beyond the possibility of cavil or dispute, if 
slavery exists in the Territories by virtue of the Constitution, the conclusion is , 
inevitable and irresistible that it is the impekative duty ok Congress to 
PASS ALL LAWS NECESSARY FOR ITS PROTEc PioN ; that thero IS and can be no 
exception to the rule, that a right guaranteed by the Constitution must he protected by 
law in all cases where legislation is essential to its enjoyment." 

iTow, then, the point of these explanations is, that ac- 
cording to the views of Mr. Douglas, and a fair exposition 
of the platform on which he is a candidate, slaves are 



11 

property under the Constitatiou ; as such, they may be 
carried into any Territory of the United States, without 
regard to the will of the people ; and when there, it is the 
imperative duty of Congress to pass all laws necessary for 
protecting the property in them. 

Where is popular sovereignty, pure and simple? Tak- 
en from the people and committed to the sovereign will of 
the Supreme Court, which is committed against it. 

What, then, is the practical distinction between the 
Breckinridge and the Douglas platforms? It seems to 
me that nobody but a willful partisan, who keeps his cour- 
age warm in the hope of an office, can find any resem- 
blance to such a distinction. 

Consider now the Republican platform and principle. 

Abraham Lnicoln, in his letter, accepting the nomina- 
tion at Chicago, said : 

" The declaration of principles and sentiments * * meets my approval, 
and it shall be my care not to violate or disregard it in any part." 

The part to which I am inviting attention, declares the 
dogma that the Constitution of the United States carries 
slavery into the Territories, a dangerous political heresy. 

Wliat, then, is the antagonism of the platforms ac- 
cepted by the gentlemen who are standard-bearers in this 
campaign ? It lies in two propositions. 

1st. That slavery may exist in the Territories by virtue 
of the Federal Constitution. 

2d. That slavery can legitimately exist only under State 
laws. 

There is a difierence with a distinction, or a distinction 
with a diiFerenee, just which you please, gentlemen. 

Am I not right? Have I not fortified my position, that 
by popular exposition of the Federal Constitution, the 
N"ovember election decides, on behalf of the Territories 
west of the Mississippi river, for or against what the Or- 
dinance of 1787 declared for the iTorth-West — that 



12 

slavery and involuntary servitude, except for crime, 
should be forever excluded therefrom; and that religion, 
morality, and knowledge being necessary to good gov- 
ernment and the happiness of mankind, schools and 
the means of education should forever be encouraged 
therein. 

Imagine the Xorth-West wilderness in 1787. Contem- 
plate the great central valley to-day. Lines of railway 
make a net-work over it. They connect well cultivated 
farms, prosperous workshops and thriving villages with 
great inland commercial centres. Churches, colleges, 
schools, lyceums, newspapers, are common necessities 
which the whole people enjoy. 

Turn from these communities, peaceable and prosper- 
ous, and contemplate the mother State which conceded 
to Congress the wilderness they have redeemed. Consid- 
er her laws ; look at her society ; ask for her manufacto- 
ries ; examine her school statistics ; estimate her wealth, 
and take notice of its sources; remember the great op- 
portunities of her historj^ and her geographical position ; 
then decide whether, so far as your ballots have influence, 
free States or slave States shall give stars to our national 
flag. 

Shall honest labor and its perennial good, its benig- 
nant services, be peaceably permitted to bless new States, 
or shall domestic slavery, with its vices, its wrongs, its 
self-propagating outrages, be extended under the fos- 
tering care of the oSTational Government? 

Disguise it as partisan prejudice, sophistry, and selfish- 
ness may, that is the question. It cannot be evaded— it 
will not be compromised. 

These are the words I would speak, could I address all 
the young voters of the nation. 

Think, gentlemen, for yourselves, on this question, in 
view of the responsibilities of your ballots. Try it by 
history. Try all the platforms by it : try the records of 



13 

statesmen by it; test the sincerity and consistency of pol- 
iticians by it; respect the exigencies of your social posi- 
tions; appreciate the political rights which you inherited, 
and you will not hesitate to select as your choice for Pres- 
ident the man who is worthy, because, in his entire career, 
from the time when he was a hired laborer on a farm, 
through all the vicissitudes of self-help, in private and in 
public life, and in his character to-day — which partisan 
bitterness dares not malign — he is a fair exponent of the 
American idea of manhood. 

An administration such as he can direct, true to the 
interests of the whole country, just to the West, just to 
the East, just to the iSTorth, just to the South, faithful 
to the Constitution, having no engagements which give 
cause for hesitating subserviency at the behests of selfish 
factions, is competent to destroy the occupation of sec- 
tional agitators, and give the nation peace on the vexed 
questions, which, like a pestiferous taint, penetrating all 
the deeds of James Buchanan's administration, have ren- 
dered it odious to all parties. 

There is an under-current of common sense and com- 
mon justice in the Southern States which those who stim- 
ulate disturbances and declaim for disunion, on account of 
prefigured wrongs, do not represent. That current will 
flow in support of an honest administration by a ISTorth- 
ern President. Healthful tokens of it now appear in Vir- 
ginia, in Kentucky, in Maryland, and in Missouri. 

With that current openly flowing for Freedom into the 
great tide which must set with a Republican President 
and Cabinet, there will be wonderful transformations of 
opinion respecting the propriety of " niggerism," " sec- 
tionalism," and other ugly names for Republicanism. 
There will also be such revolutions in local politics, such 
wholesale consigning of " aspiring patriots " to political 
Coventry as was never witnessed, except during the 
brief period " mysterious Sam " was a power at the polls. 



14 

The man, now attaining his majority, seeking a fair 
start in political life, who does not cast his ballot for Free- 
dom, will have the malancholy satisfaction of an upopular 
error, for which he can plead neither good purpose nor 
good company. 

^o man should join any movement simply because he 
thinks that movement will triumph. I ask young men to 
be Republicans in 1860, because, in view of their own in- 
terests, and the highest interests of all who are dear to 
them, it is right; yet it is not inappropriate to bid them 
take heed of the signs which give fair promise that the 
right will prevail. All of our Northern States will follow 
the hopeful example of Pennsylvania, Indiana and (Jhio, 
if our young men are not misled. 

That they spurn the influences which are employed to 
mislead them, Wide Awake organizations in all parts of 
the jSTorth in wholesome, energetic service, alibrd trust- 
worthy assurance. To those whom my words reach, I 
would bear testimony that no element in this campaign is 
more significant. Your responsibility is as wide-spread 
and far-reaching as your organization is wide awake. 
Remember, I intreat you, that national politics become 
what local politics represent and encourage. Respecting 
character in your political, as you respect it in your social 
circle, relying on honest work for politics as you do for 
permanent success in business, 3^our history will not be 
measured b}^ the campaign of 1860. 

I appeal to each one for faithful observance of the 
searching law which requires personal respect in what- 
ever violence of political animosities as it does in what- 
ever temptations of society or of business. 

A significant illustration of the value of the American 
idea of government is offered in the fact, that among no 
other people as among the people of the United States, do 
young men control opinions and direct business. In our 
workshops, in our counting-houses, in our court-houses, in 



15 

halls of learning and in halls of legislation, young- men are 
leaders. They hold to-day the destiny of the nation. 
Following the examples and obe3-ing the counsels of 
Hamilton, and Madison, and Monroe, and other political 
leaders, who were young men when the Federal Constitu- 
tion was adopted, having swept 

'■ the prairies? 
A=; of old our Fathers f^wept the sea, 
Aud made tlie West, as they the East, 
The homestead of the Free," 

securing the peaceful triumphs wdiich make Freedom na- 
tional, they will be required so to administer State and 
National Governments, that morals and education, agri- 
culture and manufactures, commerce, literature and the 
arts, may, in the widest degree and in the most benejficent 
manner, enlighten tlie people and beautify and enrich the 
land they inherit. 

Let no one be indifferent to the responsibilities which 
open before him — let no one be ignorant of the political 
history of our country — let all read with thoughtful atten- 
tion what political parties have been, and consider shrewd- 
ly what political parties ought to be. 

The encouragement of the noblest statesmen of the past 
is yours ; the fellowship and sympath}' of those who wor- 
ship the highest standards of morality, are with you. 
Then keep your armor on, let every lamp be well tilled 
and well trimmed, let every foot be ready for accordant 
step, at the Commandant's order, until the principles, for 
"which you marched to night, are so well settled in national 
policy that neither the reckless outcry of sectional distrust, 
nor the ingenious misrepresentations of disappointed am- 
bition can disturb them. 



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